Reinventing the wheel

I’ve come across a few examples recently where people either have, or have nearly, re-invented something that already existed in an organisation.

This can be termed “re-inventing the wheel”. Clearly, such activities would be a waste of resources, but what was the nature of the problems, and how could they be avoided?

What does a facilitator do?

A question that regularly arises is “What does a facilitator do?” which is a very pertinent question, especially in a business context. I will now try and provide a little more clarity on what, in my experience, good facilitators should do.

As clear as mud!! Or what does a facilitator do?

There has been a really interesting thread on the Professional Facilitators Network on LinkedIn about “How to explain what you do“.  Some of the ideas have been very well thought out and have made me think about my elevator pitch and how to ‘sell’ facilitation.

Making performance improvement real

Last week I visited Haldex Concentric in Birmingham who manufacture pumps for commercial vehicle engines. They are shortlisted for an award at the Midlands Excellence Awards, to be announced this week.

They have instigated a continuous improvement approach to improving their productivity using both Six Sigma and Lean approaches. This allows them to clearly demonstrate their improvement in productivity over time. Their approach to reporting business performance demonstrates both simplicity and effectiveness.

Business Efficiency Tools – Stronger in combination?

As a believer in taking the medicine I prescribe I’m always on the look out for opportunities to develop and improve my skills. Hence I recently attended an event at Midlands Excellence where Julian Beaney led a very informative morning discussing the various business efficiency tools in common use.

I admit to being a bit of a cynic about putting all my eggs in one basket when it comes to delivering improvements. I’ve seen too many people try and blind their customers with science by slavishly following a set route rather than remembering what the aim of the task is. Hence I was also very interested to see what other practitioners would say about the various tools.